Including, in the case of Z-Axis Inc.,giving tours to a parade of prospective buyers that included competitors who very likely would take the equipment and customers and shut down the rest.

Michael Allen, president of the Ontario County contract electronics design and manufacturing company, had to do just that with three separate companies that came to visit — including one that made multiple trips to check out the operation.

"I have a fiduciary duty to do what is right for the (parent) company," Allen said.

However, Allen ultimately is adding one more duty to his job — owner, as he his wife, Robin, both of Shortsville, are buying the company from parent company Video Display Corp.

"It takes away the worry they'd sell us off and I'd be working for somebody out of state," Allen said. "It gives me security to know all my employees have a job."

Neither Video Display nor Allen would discuss financial terms of the deal. According to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings, Video Display signed a sale agreement on Oct. 9, with the Allens closing on Z-Axis by mid-November.

The Z-Axis sale is the latest in a litany of liquidations by Georgia-based Video Display. In September 2012, CEO Ronald Ordway told stockholders at the company's annual shareholder meeting that he was looking into ways of better returning value to shareholders such as mergers, spinoffs or sale of the company.

And pointing to his 37 years with the company, Ordway said, "If none of these are successful, it may still be time to turn the reins of management over to a younger generation of entrepreneurs who can have the patience required to work within the framework of the socialist society now being propagated under the present administration of the United States government."

In recent weeks, Z-Axis has sold its Aydin Displays Inc. subsidiary in Pennsylvania and its Lexel Imaging Systems subsidiary in Kentucky to different buyers.

Neither Ordway nor President David Heiden returned messages seeking comment. But in an SEC filing earlier this month, Video Display Corp. said it continues to look into "potential mergers, spinoffs, or other methods. In the absence of obtaining new funding and/or any potential mergers, spinoffs, sale of the company as a whole or any other method, management believes continuing and newly generated business as well as the CEO's commitment to infuse additional capital, if needed, will sustain the company going forward."

Allen said he had asked for years about buying Z-Axis. But as it was consistently profitable and growing, "It was never the right time for them," Allen said. "They had little interest in selling it off."

During the past eight years, sales have grown on average 15 to 20 percent annually, Allen said. That run of growth started when the company, which had long specialized in video display terminal manufacturing, moved into contract design and contract manufacturing of electronics and circuit boards, as well as into making power supply equipment. The business model shift was a necessity, as the VDT market was quickly evaporating, Allen said: "We needed to reinvent ourselves."

Today, with a staff of several electrical engineers and technicians, Z-Axis has made contract design into a big part of its business. Roughly a quarter of the circuit boards it turns out are custom designed for a customer, Allen said.

In the meantime, Z-Axis' workforce has grown from 25 a decade ago to 65 today. And it expects to add another 10 people over the next 15 to 18 months, Allen said.

"We try to ask our customers what they want and how to give it to them," Allen said. "It's easier than coming out with a product and saying, 'Hope you like it.'"

Z-Axis products, such as its array of printed circuit boards, end up in such applications as medical equipment and industrial controls to well monitors, Allen said. That customer base is primarily in New York state and Pennsylvania, he said. "We keep expanding. Two years ago, it was a one-hour drive from the plant."

Along with Z-Axis, he's purchasing the Bear Power Supply and Boundless Technologies businesses, which are brands and units of Z-Axis. Contract manufacturing represents about 55 percent of Z-Axis' revenues, while power supplies account for another 40 percent and the rest is miscellaneous, Allen said.

The change in ownership won't bring any notable changes for employees or customers, Allen said. "The last seven, eight years, I've run this division ... like I owned it," he said. "The company name is staying the same. The people stay the same. Nothing changes."

If there's a difference to not being part of Video Display Corp., he said, it will be that financial problems with the parent company won't ripple out to Z-Axis.

"Like a Christmas bonus," Allen said. "If they have a bottom line negative two quarters in a row, it's tough to go to the boss and say, 'I want to give my people a Christmas bonus.'

"The next three to four years, we'll double the business again, no doubt about it," Allen said.